Trash Panda
by ZeeIsTrans
Summary: SPOILERS FOR GOTG 2! Summary: Rocket gets tired of Quill ignoring his emotional issues and decides to confront him.


It had been weeks since Peter's bastard father practically tortured him, physically and mentally. He had been stabbed multiple times in multiple places by energy pulsing out of no one other than his _father._ He had to deal with the newfound knowledge that his _father_ caused his mother's death, and mere minutes after all of that, his true father died right in front of him. The worst part was that it was his fault. Yondu sacrificed himself for his adopted-son so that he could live. It was _all. His. Fault._

In complete contrast to him, Peter's team was far from oblivious to how bad this had all affected him. The first sign was during a mission assigned to them by some rich alien who was willing to pay a large amount of money to anyone who took care of his issues. His issues were a group of soldiers that had messed with his business years ago, and for some reason he had only just now wanted revenge. They never did find out why he waited so long.

It was a fairly easy task; kill poorly-trained soldiers whose sole purposes were to be snotty nuisances. Rocket was the most excited at the sound of it, he was always up for killing a-holes who deserved it. Even if they didn't deserve it, Rocket was up for killing in general.

It wasn't long before they realized their employer was full of shit. It was more than just a few soldiers. It was a few soldiers and a giant gross-ass alien who seemed to want to pick everything in its path up and dangle it from its fingers for fun.

The first person it did this to was Drax, who was completely hysterical at being manhandled like that. He struggled at first, but was able to grab his gun and shoot the thing in its fat, ugly fingers. "I am victorious!" He shouted, once he grounded himself after being abruptly dropped to the ground. The rest of the team just rolled their eyes, and continued trying to kill the creature.

Quill used his jetpack to hover above its arms and shoot them, hoping to prevent it from grabbing anyone else. Unfortunately, he failed. That was when it happened. The alien swung his arm at Quill, knocking him down onto the ground, before picking him up with his index finger and thumb. Peter immediately tensed up. Suddenly, he was back on Ego, with his father's energy stabbing through him. Ego yelled at him, "Peter! Peter, calm down!" That didn't make sense.

Then, Peter came back to his senses, and he was sitting on the ground, Gamora grasping onto his shoulders. Her face showed pure terror and concern for her friend, Rocket and Drax's facial expressions not that different.

"What the hell just happened? Why aren't you fighting that thing?!" Peter looked to where the creature was now laying completely limp on the planet's surface. "Oh." He mumbled.

The ride on the Milano back to the atmosphere was quiet, no one said a word. As soon as they stopped the ship, Peter was on his feet, walking to his room. The rest of the team looked at each other in unison, all of their faces showing concern for their leader.

Two weeks later, enough was enough. Rocket was going to knock some sense into his friend and get his Shit-Lord ass to stop shutting them all out when they tried to discuss what happened on Ego and on their mission. Confidence and determination in every step, Rocket walked to Peter's room, and opened the door, not bothering to knock.

Peter was sitting on his bed with his earbuds in, listening to his Zune replacement for his walkman, oblivious of the fact that Rocket had just barged right into his private quarters.

"Hey Quill, get those damn things outta your ears!" The totally-not-a-raccoon yelled. Peter quickly opened his eyes, shocked to so unexpectedly see Rocket in his room, and pulled out his earbuds, pausing his music.

"Dude, what the hell? You can't just run in here. What would you have done if I was jerking off?" Peter halfheartedly joked. He could tell Rocket was there for a not-so-fun reason, and his instinct was to joke and hope that it would lessen the tension in the room.

"Shut up, and listen to me. The team and I are sick and tired of watching your stubborn ass completely ignore the fact that both you father figures died only weeks ago!" Both of them winced at the harsh words, Rocket even surprised at how cold his own words were.

Peter tensed with slight anger and mostly fear of being vulnerable. "What makes you think I'm ignoring it?" He yelled in response.

Rocket was instantly filled with rage at how ignorant his friend was being.

"Are you serious? How do you think?! Maybe it's the way you stare off into space sometimes when we mention anything even remotely related to your situation! Maybe it's even the fact that while we were fighting that fat alien, you freaked out and starting screaming bloody murder just because it grabbed you! Or maybe it's that constant cold, fucking look in your eyes that's been there ever since we left Ego!" Rocket panted in exhaustion after finishing his sentence, the anger that overtook him tiring him out.

There was silence for almost a whole two minutes, neither of them knew what to say. It ended when Peter finally decided to speak up.

"I- I'm sorry. I just don't know how else to deal with it. I'm a goddamned orphan, just like you said. And if I let myself remember that Yondu's dead because of me, or that my father, who I've wanted to learn about for so long killed my mother, I won't be able to hold it together. I- I can't let myself think about it." His voice cracked at the beginning of his last sentence, and he took a deep breath, refusing to let go of the tears that he had held in for so long.

"You really are a frickin' idiot, Quill. We ain't gonna judge you for showing how much your parents fucked ya up. I mean, even a trash panda like me has to loose once in awhile." Rocket reassured, genuinely surprised at how dumb his leader was being. He was concerned as hell, but also angry.

"I just don't want you to think I'm not strong enough to be your leader anymore." Peter said, quietly. Rocket sighed again.

"That ain't gonna happen, dumbass. As much as I tease you about bein' a pussy, you're one of the strongest a-holes I've met." Peter smiled. It was nice to hear reassurance from the one team member he was most worried about losing due to his temporary lack of strength.

"Now, I'm sick of this mushy crap, we got a call from a potential employer. Get your ass outta bed and let's go work, Shit-Lord." Rocket ordered, in his regular smart-ass tone.

Peter smiled. It was going to be okay, and his team wouldn't lose faith in him anytime soon. Thank god for his trash panda friend.

 **Thanks for reading, this is my first GOTG fic so I'm sorry if the characterization wasn't perfect.**

 **Please leave a review, it helps motivate me to write more!**

 **-Zee xx**


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